Matthew Reynolds

@GrapeApe9k @protomemetic @L0m3z I would say that it wasn't until 2016 that the Hugos began to be notably biased. The 2013, 2014 and 2015 winners are perfectly reasonable, and the nomination list representative. More modern lists starting in 2016 show obvious political bias.

@protomemetic @L0m3z The woke capture of the Hugos was decisive. There really hasn't been any good sci-fi since ~2013, and the damage has been compounding across the media landscape ever since.

What the NYRB article about Passage leaves out is that the publishing industry has become utterly DOMINATED by women and leftist sensibilities. Any meaningful correction to that is going to look reactionary to the people swimming in the fishbowl (NYRB’s editors, eg).

@AtheistTakes If we consider modern atheism to have arisen in the French Revolution, it's quite easy to demonstrate that just in the last 250 years, atheism has managed to give religion quite the competition for that distinction.

@protomemetic @L0m3z The Hugo Awards were much more diverse in earlier periods. Plenty of women and non-white authors won despite the dominance of male writers in the genre. Now, you can't even get published as a male writer in the genre.

@L0m3z It's crazy to realize only 2 of the last 15 Hugo Awards have gone to white men.

@L0m3z What's even crazier is when you start looking at similar critical nominations for notable new young authors, or how difficult it is today for a straight white male author to get published at all.

Disparate Impact but for Hugo awards

@LatroInMist @L0m3z I used to read the Hugo winner every year. For about 10 years now, I haven't even bothered.

@L0m3z Hugo’s is mostly a popularity contest. How else do you explain writers like Gene Wolfe and R.A. Lafferty never winning a Hugo but both have received several Nebulas and a Damon Knight award. It’s been mostly trash since at least the 90’s

@ARRGETSTUFFED As a DM, I don't do time skips over important story events because that's a form of railroading. While routine events can be summarized, something like an adventure with a bounty hunter that nearly kills a PC would be played out.

The events between Star Wars and The Empire Strike Back are a good example of play between sessions/adventures. The characters, apparently, avoid enemy patrols, encounter a bounty hunter, create a stronghold, research local environs, maintain regular patrols, perform vehicle maintenance/repairs, etc. Would you, as DM, give a EXP award fit cover this period? If so, how much?

@mikemearls @unsuperpower precisely when the consequences of failure are getting greater.

@mikemearls @unsuperpower I think you can see examples of it going wrong in design space in comparing Tomb of Horrors to Return to Tomb of Horrors, and mechanically one of the few things I think was a bad decision in the 3e design, which was adding spell level to save DC. The later makes saves less likely

Why is risk critical to TTRPG play? A die roll is the threshold to the unknown. A safe unknown is meaningless. One that offers victory or catastrophe fires up the mind and draws us into the game. This is why saving throws are a genius mechanic.

@unsuperpower @mikemearls Gygax tended to see the risk of a saving throw as the penalty for making a bad choice. Whether that always is something that is faithfully adhered to in encounter design is a different story, but I think it breaks only when there is no skill involved compared to the risk.

@mikemearls Risk/opportunity emerging from choice is what matters, and is rarely involved in saving throws. Rolling for actions is cool because your choices make your chances and you willingly take the risk.

@johncwright2001 @CristeraAbigail I pray that I will be struck by the same divine muse that guided your pen. God gifted you words of life and truth. Only how well I loved them and thank you for sharing them prevents me from being envious of that.

@Celebrim42 @CristeraAbigail The author is not the muse. Me, I was devoted to logic. Who knew this would lead me to Christ, whom all my atheist friends dismissed as illogical, a mere fairytale? Now, as the Christian, I am dumbfounded by simple schoolboy errors in logic made by famed atheists. Christ=Logos.

C’est incroyable tout les commentaires blasphématoires et anti chrétien que je me prends depuis que je partage la parole de notre seigneur Jesus Christ

@MAGALibrarian @DanielM77380264 @bledensow @SandyofCthulhu Probably not. Even superman could become viewed as an alien if it was feared he was in some fashion hegemonizing or didn't consider himself principally human, something the most recent Superman movie usefully explores.

@DanielM77380264 @bledensow @Celebrim42 @SandyofCthulhu Exactly. Superman is easy - he looks like us & protects us. If the baby from the rocket grew into a sentient 6-eyed creature with mottled white and green skin, a disgusting stench detectible from a mile away, and no useful powers, would he be made a citizen, with all the rights?

The truth about Superman's legal status. He was taken in as a foundling by the Kents, who were American citizens. According to current ICE rules, a foundling of unknown origin under the age of 5 is considered to be an American citizen if the child's guardians are American citizens. This does NOT require that the child is formally adopted or naturalized. Therefore, Clark Kent is unequivocally an American citizen, and this has nothing to do with his nation of origin. His status could only be disputed if his original parents showed up and tried to claim him when he was still a minor, which they didn't.

@azrinovitz @SandyofCthulhu within his ethnicity or nationality.

@azrinovitz @SandyofCthulhu you, only I phrased mine as, "What does this man mean by 'murder'? Does he think all killing in Somalia is justified, or does he classify it is as non-murder homocide? In any event, it was clearly a sort of ethnic chauvinism on his part - an inability to admit to any failings

Here's the deal. There are PLENTY of Muslims that can get along with Christians, and have done so. My friends who have visited Indonesia tell me that the Indonesian Muslims are not intrusive or aggressive. I've seen shows on countries such as Tajikstan in which it's clear they are reasonable folks. I can remember back in the 1950s-80s when Pakistanis and Turks (for example) could move to England or America and open shops and be friendly to their neighbors, and practice their religion in peace. I walked into a Turkish pizza shop in Germany and ignorantly asked for ham. He didn't get wrathful. He laughed and said, "Ha sir, we are halal here. But you can get ham and bacon at the shop at X strasse - they are not as rigid as I." I think starting IN the 90s the kids of these immigrants started getting radicalized, and new immigrants started coming in who didn't want to "adjust" but instead wanted to dominate. Even in the Middle East there were loads of Christians through the centuries in Iraq, Syria, and so forth until they got driven out by radicals over the last 70 years.

@EmmaRSotomayor No. I once read a fantasy book by a fashion designer that spent pages on the construction and fabric of garments. That sadly was the really interesting part. He didn't in the end have a story.

Am I the only person who describes clothes excessively in books? Like, of course I have to go into the details of a beautiful silver embroidered indigo medieval gown, and the silver-and-pearl jewelry, and the exact hairstyle the MC has.

@skdh Me and you both then. I rather liked bread. GF stuff is OK, but not the same.

i have developed a gluten intolerance, congratulations to me🫤

@TheCatholicEngr Programmer and Biologist. I've been there. And we didn't have a lot of money either, so it wasn't the greatest place. But they turned out OK.

Just spoke to a chemical engineer who has a 1 year old baby. His wife is a surgical resident. They send their baby to daycare 7:45am to 5:45pm everyday That's longer than some people's workdays 😭

@johncwright2001 @CristeraAbigail Wow. I would have never guessed that. I read "The Golden Age" and immediately assumed the writer was Christian, and probably Roman Catholic. It seems to me your reason was being guided by Our Lord before you realized it.

@Celebrim42 @CristeraAbigail The Golden Age was written when I was a hardcore, militant atheist. What you are seeing as Christian is perhaps the noble Roman philosophy of Stoicism, of Epictetus & Marcus Aurelius, which advocate d in those days. Some parallels exist between Stoic & Christian thought.

@TheMuppetPastor @BeSaintly not know that person nearly as well as you claimed to.

@TheMuppetPastor @BeSaintly It's like of you knew a person, and you referred to them. But you thought that they were working as engineer meant they drove trains. You would know that person, but you'd have a very false idea about them. We would agree you were referencing the same person, but that you did

All 9 Eastern Orthodox patriarchs teach that Muslims and Christians worship the same God